At its Lisbon summit in November, NATO is expected to make two important decisions: whether to build its own missile defense system in Europe and whether missile defense should be part of the alliance's core mission. Neither of these proposals has generated much controversy among the alliance members, so we can expect a reasonably strong commitment to missile defense to emerge from the summit. It is also possible that NATO will invite Russia to participate in the future system, and there is a good chance that Russia will accept the invitation. None of this, however, will change a simple fact about European missile defense: There is little chance that an actual missile defense system, which could protect the European continent, will ever materialize.

Missile defense in Europe has a long and unhappy history that dates back to the days of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars. Most recently, NATO supported the Bush administration's missile defense deployment plans at the alliance's 2008 Bucharest summit, but the issue was fairly controversial at the time -- many PDF NATO countries were incensed with Poland and the Czech Republic for striking bilateral deals with the United States to deploy a radar and interceptors in these countries, circumventing formal NATO decision-making mechanisms. Eventually, calls for alliance solidarity, supported by a US promise to extend coverage of its missile defense to all NATO countries, helped calm the debate, and the United States secured an approval for its program.

The only problem with this plan was that the US deployment in Eastern Europe was never intended to provide defense for Europe -- the US missile defense facilities in Europe were intended to protect US territory. The United States, understandably, opted not to draw too much attention to this, emphasizing, instead, that the system could, in some circumstances, protect certain corners of Europe. As it turned out, that was enough to win NATO support -- Poland and the Czech Republic were both more interested in the presence of US troops and facilities in their countries than in actual missile threats, and the old NATO countries were quite ambivalent about missile defense altogether. Reasoning that a shield might as well protect parts of the continent, many European countries saw no harm in letting the United States proceed as long as it did not ask for major material support.

In 2009, however, the Obama administration's decision to scrap the plan in the Czech Republic and Poland and introduce what is known as a "Phased Adaptive Approach" considerably changed the missile defense landscape in Europe. Most importantly, this new approach meant that the United States dropped the pretense that its system in Europe would be there to protect European populations. The new system, which is supposed to counter regional missile threats, will be deployed to provide defense to US troops and military assets in Europe.

The US focus on protecting its own military left NATO in a somewhat awkward position -- the alliance could no longer maintain the illusion that the US would protect Europe. From the start, it was a rather tenuous proposition, but now the Obama administration has made this clear: If Europe wants protection, Europe must build it. The United States, of course, will help its allies -- this means that Europe is welcome to use the missile defense infrastructure that the US plans to build on the continent.

This is essentially the choice that NATO must make in Lisbon -- whether the alliance wants to commit to a program that would expand the coverage of the US missile defense system. This does not seem to be a very tough decision, especially if you believe that the price of this expansion is about 200 million euros split among 28 NATO countries over a 10-year period, as the NATO leadership claims it is. (The deal looks like an even better bargain if you know that about 40 percent of this cost would be covered by the United States -- this is how the financing of NATO programs work.) It is a safe bet that the NATO countries will approve the plan with much enthusiasm at the November meeting. However, it is an equally safe bet that the plan will never materialize.

The first problem is that the cost -- 200 million euros -- is hardly a realistic estimate. It has been mentioned a lot, but nobody can say what kind of analysis this estimate is based on. It is true that the US infrastructure would be quite a substantial contribution, but the US part of the missile defense system has a much easier mission -- protecting troops and military assets is less demanding than protecting populations. The US decision to home in on this mission, in fact, made a lot of sense, as the task of protecting the military is something that a defense system can actually do. But if Europe is serious about offering protection to its citizens, it would need to pay accordingly, only to find out that shielding an entire population is prohibitively expensive, if at all possible.

This points to the second problem with the plan: Europe has never been enthusiastic about missile defense, partly because Europeans are traditionally skeptical about technological fixes of security problems, and partly because European governments have never had the money to spend on these programs. So, even if the estimate of 200 million euros were correct, it is doubtful that Europe would be able to come up with the money.

Even though it is unlikely that Europe will ever build its own missile defense system, the issue itself will not slip into oblivion. It is here to stay, with all its controversies, misunderstandings, and expectations. Despite this, missile defense might play a positive role, as it is a topic that bolsters NATO's search for a new unifying mission; there is hope that, at some point, a missile defense system might replace nuclear weapons deployed in Europe as a primary means of "alliance cohesion." It could also provide a useful point of contact for discussions among Russia, the United States, and NATO on their strategic relationships. If, in fact, NATO's embrace of missile defense helps move the discussion in the direction of broader cooperation and dialogue in Europe, it would be as good of an outcome as one could expect. As for the actual system, there is no harm in not building it -- it won't be able to offer much protection anyway.

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Interesting article.

The current American plan has land-based SM-3 missiles installed in Romania and Poland beginning in 2015 to provide limited ABM protection to US facilities in Europe. (read Germany)

From the American perspective, its a win-win situation. We’re building the SM-3 system regardless for the US Navy. Any R&D monies we can wring from the Europeans is a plus. We have leveraged Japanese technology currently in the SM-3 program with great results. A NATO commitment to SM-3 will result in those R&D dollars and a cooperative buying agreement like has been done before with AWACS and C-17s; whereby all NATO counties contribute to a special fund that will be used to purchase the hardware and pay for training and support cost.

Today, to what extent Iran is viewed as a threat and how this systems works technically will only have a limited influence on NATO policy. It’s all about creating “systems and procedures” for an uncertain future.

Agreed the €200 million is unrealistic. However, think of this cost as mostly deployment vs. development. The mobile SM-3 uses the same X-Band radar system as the US Army’s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) with a modified data link and is tied into the same space-based assets for command & control. The land-based SM-3 is mobile, modular in design and requires no special site for launching. The whole system is transportable in a C-17 and can be moved from place to place dependent on need.

The US is going to sell NATO the system and it’s deployable on just about any NATO air or army base, if ground security is an issue. If ground security isn’t a particular issue, any place the size of a soccer field can be used.

The first time this system is used in combat, if successful, international demand will skyrocket. It was no different with the US Patriot missile system. Understand, the SM-3 is only a battlefield weapon system. It’s not some panacea for ballistic missile defense; it will be no more successful knocking down IRBMs than Patriot is against aircraft.

I'm not sure I correctly understand your analogy, and if I do, I'm not sure it's correct. The Patriot is a very capable theater-SAM. The fact that the USAF tends to clear the skies making it's AA capabilities semi-irrelevant, doesn't mean that the capabilities don't exist. They may be de-emphasized, but that's not quite the same thing now.

I still don't see 200 million as realistic system costs. Unless we're talking per unit costs. But they were talking about program costs for the whole program, over a 10 year period. That's ridiculous.

I was not drawing an analogy. I simply mean the SM-3 system is designed to knock down IRBMs just like the Patriot was designed to shoot down manned aircraft. If the new SM-3 is as successful as the Patriot, it will be a successful weapon system indeed.

I think you miss the intentions regarding NATO and the SM-3 system. I don’t think the plan is to acquire hundreds and hundreds of interceptors and have launch sites all across Europe. I think the plan is to acquire several batteries of the SM-3 system that can be deployed to any location if needed. For example, while mobile X-band radars may be forward deployed to Turkey, there are no plans to “permanently’ base NATO SM-3s there. Only in an emergency would such a missile deployment occur.

But the SM-3 is an operational level complex at best. You would either need to know the targets in advance, or deploy sufficient numbers to cover all likely targets... I just don't see this as a viable pan-European BMD program. Reaction times are questionable, as is the number of interceptors. If they're worried about 5-10 Iranian MRBMs then the retaliatory deterrence factor should be enough, as that's just not enough conventional missiles to do major damage. If they're worried about either a nuclear attack, or massed attack, then they need considerably more then this, as the system is not only prone to saturation, but also has to deal with extremely limited coverage.

I can’t disagree with your conclusion; this certainly is not a “pan-European BMD program” in the least. It is a weapon system that is being built to protect military assets from intermediate range ballistic missile attack. Again think of the SM-3 as a battlefield weapon and not as some strategic solution to ballistic missile defense. Just as you might deploy Patriot to defend a airbase or army garrison against air attack, the SM-3 will do the same against IRBMs. Or, at least, that is the goal.

Remember, this system is designed to be deployable. Who is to say in the future Great Britain and France may undertake a “national military mission”? If the decision is to deploy their new joint military command, the Anglo-French Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) of around 6,500 troops from the two countries, perhaps London and Paris will request NATO help. NATO space assets, C-17 transports for mobility and a battery of SM-3s for ballistic missile defense might be crucial to the effort. Just a scenario.

Ultimately, the US may have hundreds and hundreds of these missiles protecting ships, army bases, and airfields. The SM-3 has demonstrated some of the best ABM test results, shown to be adaptable to a changing role as witnessed by the shoot-down of the wayward American intelligence satellite (USA193) back in 2008 and has a clear upgrade path. Later this decade, new versions of this system will have a limited ICBM kill capacity. Best of all, the SM-3 system has the support of President Obama and the US Congress, regardless of political majorities.

I do not understand an apparently simple question: why would Russia/Putin be afraid of an interception-system with limited ICBM kill capacity- as Frank Schuler said-? If Putin wanted to carry a policy of menace towards Great Britain and France, of course even a partial shield would be an undesiderable fact to face, but if Putin's aim is to maintain good relationships, it will be not so undesiderable, I think

That makes much more sense. I see where your analogy was going now. It's an attempt to expand IADS capability by introducing a platform with tactical and tactical-operational level BMD capability.

SimoneCanepa you would do well to realize that this current BMD program has practically no opposition from Russia. The real issue (all along) was major long term US military installations. Not the real capabilities those installations provided.